What if Twilight’s Representation of Inigenous People Matters?

The following post is an abridged version of a talk I delivered at the National Women’s Studies Association conference in Denver on November 12, 2010. The title comes from Judith Butler’s use of the word “matters” (from her book Bodies that Matter). In her theorizing, Butler emphasizes that we need to analyze what and who is constructed as “mattering” and that the issue of who “matters” is shaped by dominant ideologies and norms. At NWSA, some participants felt that the following analysis didn’t “matter” and that analysis of Twilight and the surrounding cultural phenomenon is not worthy of feminist attention. To those who disagree and see the importance of such analysis, thank you. To those who wish to police the boundaries of feminism and women’s studies, I encourage reflection on how such a move goes against the very tenets of the discipline and the movement.

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Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga romanticizes white privilege and the continuing rule of whites over “the Other” – which, in Twilight’s case, is the Quileute. Further, while the series has been complimented for depicting Native Americans in the modern day rather than in some mythic past, the saga nevertheless ignores present realities and injustices

Read as a racial allegory, a white, working class woman chooses between an ultra-white, ultra-privileged vampire and a far less privileged wolf of color.
The franchising of the phenomenon has capitalized on the Native American angle in a way that is culturally and morally dubious, much like the way we might question Meyer’s inclusion of Quileute legend for her own purposes – an inclusion that was done without extensive research or scholarly inquiry, let alone (it seems) with permission from the Quileute people.

We can thus read the story of Twilight as grounded in older tales of conquest and imperialism – and in the tradition of white authors appropriating native stories and voices – though instead of the whites and Native Americans that populated the Western films that re-enacted this conquest, we now have vampires and werewolves vying over land as well as women.

Yet, if we examine Twilight in relation to the decimation of indigenous people, and with an awareness of how Christianity generally and Mormonism more specifically are related to larger colonial and missionary projects, it is no stretch to see that to ignore race in the saga is a glaring omission.

This history cannot be ignored if one is to offer a full analysis of Twilight and the cultural work it is doing. Literature historically played a huge role in the framing of Native Americans as uncivilized and savage. Meyer’s texts carry on this project.

The saga’s failure to re-work damaging representations of indigenous peoples places it within a long line of white-penned narratives that variously appropriate and/or misrepresent Native culture and legend.

As noted in the introduction to Ward Churchill’s Fantasies of the Master Race, “Literature crafted by a dominating culture can be an insidious political force, disinforming people who might otherwise develop a clearer understanding of the struggles for survival faced by an indigenous population.”

The texts indeed “disinform” people about the Quileute, leading them to believe on the one hand that their legends include werewolves and, on the other, rendering the indigenous struggle for survival invisible.

Twilight produces a modern myth that equates whiteness with goodness and frames indigenous people as less evolved beasts. It thus allies with Ward Churchill’s claim that “literature in America is and always has been part and parcel of the colonial process”.

While Meyer explains her inclusion of the Quileute as coming about due to her visit to Forks and discovery of their legends, it cannot be denied that representing a real indigenous people as wolves is in accordance with a colonialist viewpoint.

Meyer readily admits that she had concerns about her depiction of the Quileute. When asked by a fan if she had “any negative recourse for the fictional portrayal of their tribal members as werewolves?”, Meyer answered:

I was pretty worried about this myself. However, to this point I’ve had nothing but positive feedback from Native Americans, both Quileute and otherwise. I actually got a letter on MySpace from a girl who is the daughter of one of the council members… and she loved the werewolf thing.

Here, Meyer’s comments reveal that she had some sense she was taking liberty with another culture’s legends and history.

Further, by obliquely referring to positive feedback about her focus on ethnicity, she averts the question of portraying tribal members AS werewolves.

In another question and answer session, when asked why she chose certain settings, Meyer shared “I was nervous about what the real life citizens of Forks would think, and more especially what the real life people of La Push would think—I’d taken some rather big liberties with their fictional history, and I wasn’t sure if they would find it amusing or irritating.”

Again, Meyer reveals an awareness that her “liberties” might be taken as an affront. What she does not seem aware of though, is how said liberties build upon a history of appropriation in the name of white, colonial interests.

Whether or not Meyer is intentionally writing from such a colonial view is not the point, – more pertinent is that her socio-historical positioning cannot help but shape her depiction of Native culture.

As far as my research reveals, Meyer did not correspond with any Quileute peoples nor seek out the Tribal Council to enquire whether it was okay to depict their legends in the series, let alone to determine whether her Google research was correct.

In contrast, she did reach out to the owners of Bella Italia restaurant in Port Angeles to find out if it was okay for her to feature the restaurant in a scene. So, she got permission to write about mushroom ravioli but not an entire people (as revealed in the Twilight in Forks DVD).

A modern James Fenimore Cooper, Meyer carries on a long tradition of white authors who know little to nothing of indigenous peoples but nevertheless feel entitled to write about their cultures.

Further, Meyer carries on the tradition of using indigenous characters for “backdrop” and “color” and raises no real criticisms of the colonial project or current racial inequalities.

Like Westerns, which rarely show the real diversity of Native Americans, Twilight presents the Quileute people as “russet-colored” outsiders who are romanticized as noble, exotic, and mysterious on the one hand, and dehumanized as beastly, childlike, and sexually violent on the other.

Historically, this construction resulted in native peoples being viewed quite literally as animals. In an example documented by Andrea Smith, a California newspaper reported in 1853, “We can never rest in security until the redskins are treated like the other wild beasts of the forest.”
This line could fit quite well within Twilight with the white privileged vampires unable to rest until the “russet colored” wolves, and Jacob in particular, are “civilized.”

In the final book of the series, this colonization of the wolf is promoted when the Cullens introduce “culture” to Jacob. Sleeping and eating outside at first, in various states of undress, J is gradually “civilized” and moves inside the Cullen house, or into the white world.

While Meyer’s texts themselves largely ally with the white construction of “the Indian,” the casting choice of Lautner also falls in line with a long history of non-native actors being cast to play indigenous parts.

However, after the ruckus over Lautner’s casting, Native actors were cast to play various roles for the second film, though none of them are Quileute. Alex Meraz, who plays Paul, was mindful of the weightiness of his casting, sharing

In essence, even though we’re taking some of their mythology, their creation story and it’s mixed in a fantasy, still we’re taking from the culture. Being Native, we needed to be conscious of that and ask permission to the people of the past, present and of the future … Native Americans…have a right to be protective of their stories.

Putting a rather positive spin on the saga’s depiction of the Quileute, Meraz further explains:

I think it’s time for us to kind of rewrite what Hollywood’s take on Native Americans was, which was long hair blowing, noble kind of people, leather and feather period pieces. So now you see something in a contemporary setting, and you see us to be humans. It’s great.

While it’s true the saga avoids the usual tendency to depict Natives as only living in (or stuck in) the past, Meraz’s claim that the saga shows them as humans glosses over the fact that the texts (and the film adaptations) focus on the wolf identity of the Quileute – on their animality more than their humanity.

Moreover, not only does Twilight frame America as the new frontier for vampires (with Forks being the Western resting place of these good pioneers), it constructs La Push (and non-white society) as “outside,” Other, and poverty-stricken.

Meyer’s depiction of a “treaty” between the Cullen vampires and the Quileute wolves also problematically echoes earlier historical treaties between Native Americans and the Federal Government. However, Meyer’s fictional treaty differs dramatically from the real life Treaty of Olympia, signed between the Quileute nation and the US in 1856. While the historical treaty resulted in the loss of Quileute land and sovereignty, the treaty in Twilight offers a relatively peaceful means of co-existence.

Meanwhile, for the real Quileute people of La Push, land issues remain a concern and boundary disputes with Washington State continue. For them, the “treaty line” signs that have been put up on the road that leads from Forks to La Push likely have a much different significance than for the fans who regularly pose by the signs, taking home photo shots that celebrate the fictionalization of a real people and once again render indigenous culture tourism fodder.

To conclude, though the stereotypical depiction of Quileute as noble-savages morphed into werewolves can be brushed off via the claim this the series is meant to be a fantasy, we cannot pretend that such depictions do not contribute to dominant notions of race shaping US culture.

The fact that the series depicts a real group of indigenous people, one that, like most indigenous groups, has been decimated by colonization, torn apart by practices such as Indian Boarding Schools, and forced to assimilate into white culture and belief systems, is problematic. The series does not touch on such history let alone address the lasting legacy of colonialism.

2 thoughts on “What if Twilight’s Representation of Inigenous People Matters?”

Meyer’s Mormon beliefs/background and how it relates to Native Americans has to be considered. Native Americans are the descendents of Israelites who came to America in 600 B.C., and they all had white skin according to Mormon doctrine. There were two tribes and the ‘evil’ one who turned their backs to God killed off the good one, and as punishment God turned their skin dark (dark skin is a sign of low morals in the Mormon religion).

Brigham Young said: “You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation …When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people. -(Journal of Discourses 7:336)

So the Native Americans who survived are the Laminites whom God cursed with dark skin, but they do have a chance to become the white and delightsome people they once were! Maybe this is part of Meyer’s quasi positive view of the Quileute nation. They still have a chance if they change their wicked ways and become more civilized. I mean a lot of them are starting to look whiter according to Mormon leader Spencer Kimball:

"The purpose of theory...is not to provide a pat set of answers about what to do, but to guide us in sorting out options, and to keep us out of the 'any action/no action' bind. Theory...keeps us aware of the questions that need to be asked."
--Charlotte Bunch
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